These are the songs that Christine Yano picked out as influential in her book TEARS OF LONGING.

I can't say that a Japanese would agree. But most of these are heavy as hell.

Let's start with a cover version of the 1906 hit RAPPA BUSHI, originally written by soeda azembo

next, Sasurai no uta (song of wandering) (1917), which cashed in on a social phenomenon: the lonliness of leaving hometown to find work in the city. a very topical theme in the rapidly industrializing country.

Just don't click if you're tired of living. Seriously you'll jump out the window before the bridge.

Fuck! this guy is fucking crazy. Here's Moreshige Hiyasa doing a LOVE SONG. (the youtube poster captioned 'overflowing with love'), so you know this is dude at his maximum happiness level.

Tottori Shunyou's hit "kago no tori" (bird in a cage) (1924). It was such a huge hit, became a film! Japanese corporations even then were really savvy about cross-merchandising. This 60 years before manga-became-videogames-became-anime-became movies and all that!

moving to the '30s, meet sendou kouta : the man who gave enka the distinct sound and arrangements (aka KATA) that it has today.

Kouta was a song-writer. I'm not sure who is singing on this one.

Sake wa namida ka tameiki ka (is sake a teardrop or a sigh?) –

another version of the same song:

.

kage wo shitaite – following after your image. another kago hit.

akagi no komoriuta (Lullaby of Akagi)

A classic example of a big enka theme: nostalgia for the furusato (hometown), in this case, Akagi.

Moving to the post-war era,

yu no machi elegy (bath town elegy) (1948) – also by Mr. Kago. this song captures the gloom of post-war Japan.

A nice historical travel through music.
I'd say a lot of those are 歌謡曲 and not 演歌, which I think started after WWII, but I can't be sure, and I'll be damn if I can trace a fine line between the two genres anyway!
Since we're sharing our little favorites, here's 梶芽衣子－怨み節http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNaCIb4dsuA&feature=related
The single version is better and easily findable on the tube, but I can't resist giving this version from the movie 女囚さそり ("Female prisonner scorpion") where Meiko is the main actress too. (gotta say I haven't seen the movie)
And talking about kayoukyoku/enka/70s pop singing actresses, here's 池玲子, queen of ピンク映画, interpreting her version of some classic tunes:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDWKmRZIcWI&feature=related
But I may have diverged a bit from the original style talked about in this thread…

François July 17th, 2011
4:09 am

And I spew that stupid shit about kayoukyoku and enka BEFORE I read your comprehensive review on it, one article down…
Talking before thinking.